If you want to save some money (and you spend a lot of your day in a place with reliable Wi-Fi, such as your office), you might want to sign up for the cheapest cell phone plan available and rely on free call and text apps instead.

Here are the best phone apps with free calling for Android and iOS. They all offer unlimited calls and either SMS text messages or some other form of messaging. Some offer landline and cell phone calls too. Keep reading to learn more.

1. TextNow

As you'll soon discover, many of the apps that offer free calling all share a significant caveat—you can only call people who also have the app installed. Often, you cannot make calls to regular landlines or cell phones.

TextNow is one of the exceptions. As long as you live in the US or Canada, you can make unlimited free phone calls to any phone number in either country. If you want to call international numbers, you will need to pay. You can, however, earn international calling credits by completing offers.

Other cool features include voicemail transcripts, caller ID, call forwarding, and your own free inbound number. TextNow is available on Android and iOS, as well as Windows and macOS.

Download: TextNow for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)

2. Text Free

Text Free was created by Pinger, a company that's been making free Wi-Fi calling apps for several years. It's similar to TextNow, but there are some important differences. Most notably, only Wi-Fi-based app-to-app calls and inbound calls are free. If you want to make outbound calls to a regular phone number, you will need to pay.

Luckily, you can earn minutes for free by watching videos and completing partner offers. If you prefer to pay, you can grab 100 outbound minutes for $1.99. You can use the minutes to call anywhere in the world.

You'll also be able to choose a real US phone number that you can give to friends and family. The custom number selector lets you pick an area code, then add your preferred combination of characters.

The Text Free app is ad-supported and available on both Android and iOS.

Download: Text Free for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)

3. WhatsApp

Using WhatsApp to make free calls has some obvious limitations. You can't call landlines or cell phones; the app can only place calls to other people who have WhatsApp installed. Nonetheless, it is still one of the most widely used free calling apps.

On the plus side, an increasing number of businesses—big and small—now maintain WhatsApp accounts. This means you might still be able to order a pizza from your favorite restaurant when you get some midnight hunger pangs.

Unlike TextNow and Text Free, WhatsApp also supports video calls and group calling. The best part about WhatsApp, however, is its user base. It is comfortably the most popular messaging app in the world, meaning there's a very high chance that the person you want to contact also has an account.

Once again, WhatsApp is available on Android and iOS. You cannot place calls via the service's web app.

Download: WhatsApp for Android | iOS (Free)

4. Google Meet

Google Meet is another Wi-Fi calling app that most people already have access to. It lets you create audio or video meetings over Wi-Fi to other users with a Google account on both Android and iOS.

One meeting can have over 100 participants, making it one of the best apps to make group conference calls. You can share your screen if you're trying to present something to everyone, blur your background if you're on a video call, apply visual effects, record meetings to see later, and more.

Download: Google Meet for Android | iOS (Free)

5. Dingtone

Dingtone is another of the best free texting and calling apps. You can send unlimited free texts to other numbers (both locally in the US and internationally), and can call landlines for free via Wi-Fi.

The app is especially useful if you need a second number for business, or need a private number that's separate from the one your friends have. You could even use the second number to pull pranks on your mates.

Download: Dingtone for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)

6. Talkatone

Talkatone, which is available for both Android and iOS, provides you with a free US phone number that you can use to send and receive texts, and place calls to most US-based numbers, including landlines. It is definitely a calling app worth checking out.

You can use Talkatone to make calls via Wi-Fi or cell data. Of course, the cell data will eat through your data allowance, but it will still avoid using available minutes if you are low. The app works outside the US when you are traveling, but foreign phone numbers are blocked.

Download: Talkatone for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)

7. Skype

Sure, Microsoft's Skype doesn't enjoy the same market dominance as it once did, but it's still a big player in free Wi-Fi calling apps and remains popular among business users.

Once again, calls to other Skype users are free. If you want to call landlines and cell phones, you will need to sign up for one of Skype's payment plans. Numerous plans are available, each of which offers a different number of minutes and supported countries.

And remember, if you're an Office 365 subscriber, you receive 60 minutes of free calls to any global number every month. Unfortunately, unused minutes do not accumulate between months. Check out some of the best Skype alternatives if you would rather look elsewhere.

Download: Skype for Android | iOS (Free)

8. Discord

Discord isn't as popular as WhatsApp or Google Meet, but it's the instant messaging app of choice for millions of people, especially gamers. Conversations in Discord are called servers, and you can create different channels in each server for a unique purpose—it's almost identical to how Slack works.

Like all the other apps on the list, Discord allows you free unlimited voice and video calls, and you can also share your screen with others like on Google Meet.

Download: Discord for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)

Free Wi-Fi Calling Is the Future

Apps that let you choose a phone number and make free Wi-Fi calls to other users are becoming popular. Indeed, it's hard to see a future in which these apps do not play an increasingly important role in the cell phone plan landscape; they could easily become the Netflix of the phone call sector.

So, which app should you choose? It depends on your needs. If you want to call other apps exclusively, then services like WhatsApp and Google Meet are unbeatable. However, if you need to place outbound calls to landlines and cell phone numbers, you're going to need to turn to one of the other solutions.